


When the Stars Align

by Kholran



Series: Under Your Skin [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Pre-Slash, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3400274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kholran/pseuds/Kholran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More observations than Thranduil intends to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Stars Align

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for your wonderful comments on the first installment!

Thranduil sits in his ornately carved chair at the head of the Great Hall. The tables are laden with food as is customary when hosting guests, but he doesn’t partake. The day’s negotiations with the Master of Dale had been as tedious as he’d anticipated, and they are no closer to reaching an agreement than they had been at the start. As usual, the human’s only interests were his own. He was constantly looking for ways to profit whilst giving nothing in return. Thranduil might not have minded so much if those profits ever benefited the people of Dale, but somehow the money always seemed to vanish when it reached the official coffers. He has no interest in capitulating to a man willing to steal from his own people.

He has no interest in accommodating the Master and his small entourage of advisers and guards either, but it’s too long a journey to make daily. He’s stuck with them until they come to terms.   


The men don’t seem overly interested in engaging with him unless absolutely necessary, nor do they pay much attention to any of the rest of his kin in attendance. They keep to a far corner of the room, drinking and laughing amongst themselves. He doesn’t mind. It gives him the opportunity to observe his guests.

He is, of course, already familiar with the Master, having had more than enough dealings with him in the past. Sometimes he wonders if the man is intentionally stubborn in his negotiations with the aim of extending his stay and taking advantage of  the elves’ hospitality. More than once, he’s caught the Master squirreling away food in his pockets, and it’s because of him that Thranduil keeps his best vintages hidden within his cellars during feasts like this. If he didn’t, he would find his stores empty by the time the men left again.

The Master’s lackey, Alfrid, is familiar too, and no more trustworthy than the one he serves. He has, on occasion, come to negotiate on the Master’s behalf, and Thranduil found him the sort that would stab his closet friend in the back if he thought he’d be able to benefit from it. Assuming he had friends, anyway. Thranduil is willing to bet he has a rat or a weasel or some other type of rodent somewhere on his body with the way he’s always skulking about.

Then there are the Master’s advisers, never fewer than three in number. Thranduil is fairly certain the title is ceremonial. He’s never actually seen them advise. In fact, they seem to do very little beyond agreeing with the Master on whatever he says. Even now they hover around him with sycophantic reverence, plying him with food and drink and bending to his every whim. Thranduil recognizes most of their faces, even if he couldn’t put names to all of them. For the most part, they’re harmless old men whose only job is to stroke the Master’s ego.

It’s the guards he is most wary of. They are rarely the same from one visit to the next, and beyond that, aren’t the sort Thranduil would invite into his kingdom under any other circumstances. These are not the royal guard that would accompany the king of Rohan or the steward of Gondor. The men the Master has in his employ aren’t nearly so noble. They are brigands, ruffians, and mercenaries more often than not, and he doesn’t trust them. He doesn’t think they would be so bold as to move against him in his own kingdom, but all the same, his own guards keep a close watch on them while they’re here.

As he looks away to reach for his goblet of wine, Thranduil feels the sort of prickling on the back of his neck that comes from being watched in return. The sensation isn’t that unusual. It happens more than he’d like. This, though, feels somehow different.

Perhaps it’s because it doesn’t originate from one of his own people. The human surreptitiously stealing glances at him is separated from the rest. None of them speak to him, and indeed Thranduil doesn’t remember them ever doing so over the course of the day. They barely even look at him. How analogous  that is with his own situation strikes him with unexpected force. So does the realization that he finds the man’s face not altogether unpleasant. For a human.

Still, he’s wary. Many of the Master’s political rivals have disappeared under suspicious circumstances over the years. That was allegedly how his grandfather had come to power in the first place, after the Lords of the Dale had all given their lives in defense of the city during the dragon’s siege. Rumour had it he’d secured his position by ordering the murder of anyone left with noble blood, women and children included. This Master may have given the air of incompetence, but Thranduil knows he is no less ruthless than his predecessors. He could very well keep an assassin in his company.

It’s something to look into, in any case, and only a short while later, Thranduil excuses himself under the pretense of attending to his son. Not entirely untrue, as he does wish to arrange a doubling of the prince’s guard for the duration of the mens’ stay. He feels the gaze follow him out of the Hall.

~*~

Thranduil’s dreams once again deny him a restful sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees fire. On especially bad nights, he sees his father, his mother, his wife in the flames, consumed, pleading with him to save them. He never can.

Instead of fruitlessly laying in bed awake, he walks. There isn’t an inch of the caves he doesn’t know by heart, and he has no trouble finding places that few others ever go when he wants to be alone. Beautiful as the carved stone of the main halls is, he almost prefers the rough natural rock and organic forms that can be found in the undeveloped  parts of  the extensive system of caverns.

His silent footsteps carry him to the edge of a wide pool of water, fed by the underground stream that runs through the kingdom. Moonlight filters in through a jagged hole in the ceiling, and a smattering of stars shine brightly in the cloudless sky. In the daytime, the chamber is bright with sunlight, and the rocks here are green with mosses and ferns and even a few wildflowers that have found a way to take root. Night has turned the clear blue water inky black and decidedly less inviting, even though the air coming in from above is hot and dry.

Thranduil circles the water until he reaches a sturdy rock that juts out just over its surface. He remembers leaping off of it when he was just a child, when the world had afforded him that kind of frivolity. He doesn’t swim anymore, not even when he’s alone, out of fear that someone will see _it_ , but he isn’t above dangling his feet into the cool water.

Before he has the chance, he hears the soft scuffling of footsteps coming from the chamber’s entrance. He sinks back into the deep shadows, on guard and recalling his earlier fears of an assassin within the Master’s company. He’s unarmed, but certainly not defenseless.

Thranduil doesn’t recognize the guard from earlier until he steps into a beam of moonlight bright enough to reveal his face. He’s prepared to be furious that his suspicions are confirmed and the Master has called for his death when the man suddenly lowers himself onto a mossy patch near the water’s edge. If he’s noticed Thranduil, he’s doing a fine job pretending he hasn’t. Intrigued, Thranduil watches as the human tugs off his boots and rolls up his trouser legs to his knees. He stands again and wades out into the pool, seemingly unafraid of what might be lurking in the black water.

It certainly isn’t the behaviour of an assassin sent to track him down and kill him.

He doesn’t know what compels him to keep watching rather than reveal himself and demand an explanation from the human regarding his presence here and how he’d gotten around the well-trained elven guard that was meant to be keeping watch. He’s well within his rights to make such a demand, and he really should do that.

A flutter of motion catches his eye and he follows it until he realizes it’s the human’s shirt that he’s tossed back onto his boots. When Thranduil looks back, he’s already disappearing under the water’s surface. Inexplicably, he feels like the intruder now, and revealing himself at this point would require an explanation he isn’t sure how to give.

He tells himself he’s _not_ hiding, and this isn’t _at all_ strange, as he stands still as a statue, hardly daring to breathe. The human is a strong swimmer. It’s not the sort of skill Thranduil would expect a man of Dale to have, given its distance from the Long Lake, but this one seems perfectly at home gliding through the water and diving under it, as if he’s been doing it his whole life.

Thranduil isn’t sure how long he’s spent captivated by the human’s aquatic endeavours when he finally returns to dry land and his abandoned belongings. Longer than he’d ever admit. Similarly he would never admit to noticing the way the water caught the moonlight and accentuated the planes of the human’s bare upper body. Thank all that was holy the man had only seen fit to remove his shirt and nothing more.

The thought catches him off-guard. It’s been so long since he’s felt any kind of attraction at all, and he’s never felt it for anyone except her. In the years since her passing, he hasn’t even gone so far as to consider anyone pleasing to the eye. And yet here he is, in the shadows, admiring the figure of a human man whose name he doesn’t even know, for reasons he can’t begin to fathom.

The man leans down to collect his shirt, and suddenly Thranduil doesn’t have to try to hold his breath anymore. It catches in his chest and leaves him incapable of drawing another. There, on the human’s tanned skin, is a marking he knows all too well. Wings that spread over his shoulders, a serpentine tail winding down his spine, and a reptilian head poking out from between wet strands of black hair.


End file.
